EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 25, 1886_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I return without approval Senate bill No. 1998, entitled "An act for the
relief of John D. Ham," which grants a pension to the party named.
The claimant alleges that he enrolled in the Army in January, 1862,
and was "sworn in at his own home;" that the next day he started on
horseback to go to the regiment he was to join, and that on the way his
horse fell upon his left ankle, whereby he sustained an injury which
entitles him to a pension.
His name is not borne upon any of the rolls of the regiment he alleges
he was on his way to join.
He filed his application for pension in the Pension Bureau October 17,
1879 (seventeen years after his alleged injury), which was rejected
apparently on the ground that he was not in the military service when
the disability claimed was incurred.
He was drafted in 1863 and served until he was mustered out in 1865.
It is entirely clear that this claimant was not in the military service
at the time he claims to have been injured; and his conduct in remaining
at home until he was drafted, nearly two years afterwards, furnishes
proof that he did not regard himself as in the meantime owing any
military duty. These considerations, and the further facts that upon
being drafted he was accepted as physically qualified for service, that
he actually thereafter served a year and eight months, and that he
waited seventeen years before claiming pension for his injury, in my
mind present a case upon which the claimant is entitled to no relief
even if charity instead of just liberality is invoked.